Field of the Invention
This patent document relates to protective cases for mobile or handheld electronic devices such as tablet computers, smart phones, PDAs, MP3 players, and gaming devices.
Description of the Related Art
Protective cases for mobile devices are known in the art. Users of such protective cases, however, are becoming more and more conscientious of the aesthetics of such cases. It is not uncommon for users to have numerous protective cases of different colors or patterns for different occasions. It is also not uncommon for users to customize or personalize their protective cases with markings such as stickers, paint, ink and the like. From an inventory and manufacturing standpoint, it can be challenging to offer a suitable number of different aesthetics (styles, colors and textures) for even a single protective case model with sufficient diversity and availability to capture significant market share. As a result, manufacturers tend to make a limited number of colors or styles for their protective cases.
Accordingly, it is here recognized that there is a need for protective cases for mobile devices that have modular components that can be mixed and matched by the user, such that the user can select a first component having a first aesthetic look and a second component having a second aesthetic look and reversibly combine those two components into a functional protective case for a mobile device.